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froelich131 commented on froelich131's City Journal entry in Spring City

I just wanted to leave a small comment in regards to my city. I know it is not the prettiest or the greatest, and the updates are lackluster, but this city journal is just how I play the game. I imagine all these scenarios and situations and try to imagine life in the town.
Thanks for reading.
-Froe

Hello everyone, welcome back to Spring City.
The past year has treated the city (mostly) well. The city's population has grown, and the commercial side of town has grown even more. One new, large, building has been built in downtown, it is the corporate offices of Simdustries, the main industrial employer of town.
But before we get to that...
Here is highway 10 which leads right into town. Traffic on it is pretty terrible, but town planners cannot do too much to improve it. The infrastructure require to improve the highway would be far too costly. However, some plans are being discussed among the city council about building a secondary, bypass, route south of town.
With that in mind, a new road is being built going north.
The road is planned to go north past the rail lines. This side of town is expected to be the fastest growing side of town, and so infrastructure is being prepared in advance.
Here we can see the rail line getting a temporary bypass so that the line can continue to be used during construction.
Here is the finished overpass. The city is attempting to future proof itself when it comes to planned expansion. However, only so much can be done due to monetary limitations and the population rather the money be spent on existing areas than new.
Now, onto downtown. Some of the older buildings have begun to fall apart, water damage, poor upkeep, and poor construction is causing these two buildings on the corner of the road to be demolished and a new building put up.
Here's the new corporate offices of Simdustries.
Parking space is taking up too much space in town, too. So a small parking garage has been built to accompany the new tower.
So, now we have covered some changes made from the north west side of town, downtown, and now onto the east side of town.
The main industrial base of town is based in the east. Some years ago they faced some extreme hardships with the local economy having a large recession. To keep them in business and from leaving town the city went to them to make a deal. One of the major complaints of the industrial companies was extreme difficulty to exporting goods produced. The road network was not accommodating to the mass of trucks, and the single rail station (pictured below) could not handle the volume.
So, the city has decided to make a huge new station, tripling the capacity.
Now some more minor changes. Along the river a small expansion is being built.
And a new park with the expansion.
And a new school.
Well, that concludes update three! Lots of changes made to town, planning for future expansions, new infrastructure, and a new building in downtown,
Thanks for reading,
Froe

Hello everyone, we are back in Spring City. In the previous post I went over how the city was experiencing some economic hardships regarding it's industry. Part of the reason is commute times for industry are not great. The city never designed its road systems well enough to handle large numbers of trucks and cars. As the city has grown over time the old roads have failed to keep up. Lets watch as the new year shows progress towards building a greater city.
It was decided that some minor upgrades would be made to help increase traffic flow across town.
Here is just one picture of high amounts of traffic.
This one road is often backed up with traffic. Another great source of traffic is in downtown. As of right now the city has some plans to help allievate downtown traffic but nothing has been done or put into action just yet.
Here is the upgraded road network outside of the East Industrial area. In a previous image it was shown that it is constantly backed up.
The road gained some turning lanes and some ramps to help increase traffic flow. So far it seems to be working great.
Some other traffic improvements have been made. Like the main artery into downtown has gained some turning lanes.
Here we have current city hall. As of right now the building is old and is often in repair mode. The city has decided to make a few changes to this area of town as well, prompting for
a new town hall to be built. Since this city serves as the main government center for the region it was decided to consolidate offices into one main building. On top of that, a roundabout has been planned for the previous location of the city hall. This is to help stimulate traffic flow in downtown and decrease deadly accidents.
Here is the new roundabout put into place instead of the four way stop light.
And here is the new town hall. Just down the road from the previous one.
Here's a shot of downtown prior to the improvements made to it.
Unfortunately these improvements have come too late for some businesses in downtown, and they have closed up shop. Thankfully, the city has a plan for the location of these buildings.
A new plaza is to be constructed to help grow downtown more and give some class to the area.
Here's the new plaza.
Here's a shot of the East Side elementary school. It was built within recent years.
Commercial development has been on the rise lately.
And a series of new park initiatives has begun.. Here's one new park built in town.
And a trial running alongside the rail line has been constructed as well.
Finally, the last major change to town in the past year is the construction of a new fire station on the East side of town. It is a larger station meant to serve the surrounding area and region.
Unfortunately, all these positive changes to the city do not change the fact that the city is facing an identity crisis. For years the city was a small-big city, based heavily in industry and services. However, recently the industry in the area has begun to falter. Issues with transportation being one large reasons, in combination with economic turmoil. As such, unemployment is on the rise. The city has been working to renovate downtown and encourage large business operations made there. But, it is costing the city lots of money.
For now the citizens just have to wait out the storm.
Here is a bonus picture.
Overall the city has seen some minor improvements the past year. The city has grown to just over 60,000 people. Commercial demand has gone up despite some businesses failing. Downtown has begun a series of major improvements and growth and development, and a new transit hub and distribution center is being planned to help ease the industries voice for help. Stay tuned for next years developments.

Hello there everyone, welcome to Spring City!
This is just a more built up part of town off to the West of Downtown.
And this is the South side of Downtown. Here we can see the two main roads in town. This town is home to 53,000 residents and is seen as the economic center of the region.
This is downtown in it's current shape and form. As you can likely tell form the picture, the town is not looking too great. Trash fills the streets, parking lots are nearly empty,
and downtown looks desolate. This is because of a rather large recession facing the city and region as a whole. It is in due part of budget issues regarding the city in the past,
with money being misspent. In a whole, the city faced a long period of infrastructure stagnation and policies were made that limited the motivation to move into the town.
Here, to the east of Downtown, is the main industrial area. It runs up along the river. This was the source of nearly 70% of jobs in the city 20 years ago, but has sense
began to falter. Here numbers of layoffs have occurred recently.
More of the industrial part of town. The previous city council changed some laws around and allowed over pollution by industry, causing sickness to locals and a large
number of people moving out of town. Thankfully, stricter laws were put into place and new garbage handling procedures implemented.
Built next to the regions power station is a recycling center. The building handles all the cities recycling needs. The building is just the beginning in a change of heart
the city has committed to in regards to its residents.
Here is a more zoomed out picture of downtown. Notice the large amount of space to expand the downtown area and develop the city!
So that concludes this first update. I do not know how far I will get into this project, I have many busy days ahead. Please give me any feedback you can!
-Froe

I don't think that's the case. You have to think of it differently, one that makes companies seem bad when they're really not that bad.
They're given a certain amount of time to develop a game, with a certain number of developers. With that they are given a criteria for said game. That being said, they prioritize features according to criteria and ease of development.
I'm 100% certain that developing things to make disabled people play easier would be very difficult because there are many unique disabilities that one fix won't work for, and the game is designed to play a specific way. So all in all I would say it's not necessarily that they don't think of the disabled, it's more that they simply don't have the scope to make it so every disabled person can play.

Well, today I bite the bullet. I started writing the storyline..
Anyways..
"The first time I saw this, I almost fainted."
That is going to be about the first line in the CJ. It may change a little bit though.
~Joey

Hey, Everyone.. I figured I should stop spamming my City Journal.
Anyways.. I created a blog, which I promise will be updated pretty much, whenever it needs to be.. (Everyday, to once a week)
Linkie: http://blogs.simtropolis.com/Froelich/
Anyways, Within the blog.. I will have teasers (which include storyline leaks, and pictures) And, anything that is related to the CJ.
I don't have any ideas for a storyline yet.. I probably won't include a solid storyline until.. The 2nd update?